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Environmental rule of law is a framework for addressing the implementation gap between environmental laws and actual practice. While related to environmental governance, environmental rule of law has a narrower focus on compliance with and enforcement of environmental laws rather than the decision-making behind them. (source 1: page 10) This emerging concept has been forwarded by the United Nations Environment Programme as a crucial means to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as an end in itself within the context of Goal 16. (source 1: page 10) (source 2: page 9)

Overview
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Environmental rule of law emerges from two key beliefs. The first belief is that voluntary measures alone are inadequate and must be paired with binding laws (including standards, procedures, rights, and obligations) to ensure truly sustainable management of the environment. (source 1: pages 9- 10) The second belief is that legal objectives can only be fulfilled when there is rule of law. (source 1: pages 9- 10)

Environmental rule of law has seven distinguishing characteristics:


 * First, environmental rule of law is critical to human health and welfare. (source 1: page 10)
 * Second, environmental rule of law is emphatically multidimensional. (source 1: page 11)
 * Third, environmental rule of law is shaped by and responds to significant political, economic, and social dynamics that are particular to natural resources, namely the tragedy of the commons and the resource curse. (source 1: page 11-12)
 * Fourth, management of the environment also implicates the moral and ethical duties humans owe non-human species and resources. (source 1: page 12)
 * Fifth, because so many human communities depend upon natural resources for their livelihoods and welfare, and are affected by the conditions of the environment around them, and because all humans depend on clean air and water, public involvement in environmental decisions and laws is particularly important. (source 1: page 12)
 * Sixth, environmental rule of law must also contend with uncommon timescales. (source 1: page 12)
 * Seventh, significant uncertainty is often involved in the decision making around environmental rule of law. (source 1: page 12-13)

History
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While the fields of "environmental law" and "rule of law" are not new, their intersection as "environmental rule of law" remains an emerging concept. The concept was first articulated in 2013 in the UNEP's “Decision 27/9 on Advancing Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability." (pages 2-3) One year prior, the “Rio +20” United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development contributed to the emergence of environmental rule of law through the creation of the United Nations Environment Assembly and the holding of the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability. (source 2: page 4) The latter event was a gathering of more than 250 of the world’s chief justices, attorneys general, and auditors general, where significant attention was devoted to “adherence to the rule of law and an open, just and dependable legal order" as requirements for the implementation of desired environment and sustainable development outcomes. (source 2: page 4)

Reception
Two issues inherent in the environmental rule of law are captured by the latter two of UNEP's seven distinguishing characteristics of environmental rule of law: the implementation in uncommon timescales—that is, timescales of many centuries and more — which implicates intergenerational equity and the context of significant scientific uncertainty in which environmental law decisions must be made. Overcoming these challenges and strengthening the environmental rule of law requires coordinated efforts from a diverse group of actors, not just those in the environmental law sector. Edith Brown Weiss notes that the present generation acts not only as trustee for future generations but also as beneficiary of the trust. To counter any potential friction resulting from the dual role of the present generation as both trustee and beneficiary, we must focus on sustainability in addressing the conflict and such a perspective is necessary to ensure the efficacy of the environmental rule of law.

The environmental rule of law as a concept has also received some criticism. The rule of law itself is notoriously difficult to define and measure —issues which the environmental rule of law has inherited. Environmental rule of law’s apparent core premise of rule of law as a precondition to sustainable development bears close resemblance to now mostly abandoned beliefs that see rule of law as an essential precondition to economic development.

As environmental rule of law moves beyond a primarily UNEP-led conversation, clarity and focus of what the environmental rule of law entails will be of heightened importance. This is particularly the case where multilateral institutions, nation states, and sub-national governments are beginning their work to implement the United Nations Development Programme’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Achieving those goals will require new legal instruments and effective implementation of existing ones, especially in relation to environmental law. To advance such work, and to advance associated environmental and sustainability legal initiatives, promoters of environmental rule of law ought to more openly heed critiques of using the rule of law banner, and ought to ensure that the environmental rule of law banner does not substitute for the more difficult but less glamourous political and economic choices that actually sit at the center of development policy-making.